Twenty To Four
by spheeris1
Summary: Post S2/Future AU :: One-shot :: Spencer POV :: Angst galore. :: 'When you call me up, you are always just a little late...'


When you call me up, you are always just a little late – like around two or three in the morning – and if I were a smart woman, I'd just stay asleep and let you forget that you dialed my number.

Sure, you'll do it again – on some other night – but, in this moment where your voice says something broken into my ear, it doesn't have to happen this time… if I could just let that phone ring and ring and ring.

And you tell me all about Melbourne, like it means something to me all the way over here in Toronto – you against the shore and in the sun, me in my winter coats and foot-deep snow…

And you tell me about that last show, the one where all the papers said you were drunk while singing – which I don't want to believe, for obvious reasons, and which I do believe, for more obscure reasons…

And you tell me about love, the kind that fills up the pages of every childhood paperback – hands being held and kisses under apple trees and endless devotion…

Like it means anything to me, with you somewhere I cannot be.

Like it means anything at all.

/ / /

They fix me up with a red-head and she is funny – in a ha, ha, ha kind of way – and she forces me to finally speak some French, taking my hand and spelling out new ways to say 'where is the bathroom?'

She is pretty and delicate, a rose caught in ice – pale and blushing underneath my fingertips.

She is so not like you, with your skin so golden and your eyes so dark.

She is not like you at all.

And that should make it work, that should make it spectacular.

But she is so not like you, with your gut-punching grin and your ever-hesitant laugh.

She is not like you at all.

And so it inevitably fails.

/ / /

Isn't this the part where the heroine moves on? Or hops on the first plane out of this cold-weather town, tries to track you down before you… fall in love with someone new?

Or take off for parts unknown?

Or die from some mysterious disease?

Isn't this the part where I tell you all my little secrets… all the things that you've been waiting to hear all these years?

And there you are, twenty to four, jerking me out of slumber.

And there you are, saying something about your guitar strings and the food at the hotel and how nice it would be to just go for a walk that didn't involve cameras and posing.

And there you are… there you are… offering up what you can and just hoping I'll take it in my arms.

And isn't this the part where I should do just that?

/ / /

They tell me, repeatedly, that you left me and you picked a world of fame over me and how I can do so much better than you.

They tell me, over and over, that you'll regret it one day and I'll be long gone by that time.

They tell me all of this, all of the time… and I almost believe them.

Almost.

Almost.

Almost.

But there you are, calling me up – always too late… but still… always, you are calling me always…

And I know you never left me, not really.

I left you.

/ / /

"I wrote a new song today."

"Yea?"

"It's about you."

"…Ashley."

"Most of the new ones are, you know."

"I know."

"I'd like for you to hear it first, give it your approval. Can you do that for me, Spence?"

"Okay. Okay, I can."

Just like every other time, radio waves or right in my face, the sound of your singing breaks me apart – pieces scattered all along this bed – and I'd give anything for you to be here, just to put me back together again.

You like to tear me up, take me down… and you like to build me back up, brick by stupid brick…

And you've been doing it for so long, you've made it an art form.

Only you know what makes me who I am – 'coz you truly made me who I am.

Wasn't that the plan all along?

/ / /

They tell me to let you go.

And god knows I've tried to.

I've stayed out all night long, just so you can't reach me.

But you never give up.

And you never will, this I know… you set your sights on me as we sat on wooden bleachers, knowing me long before I knew myself, many long days ago.

And by the time I finally kissed you, in your head… we were already together.

They tell me to run faster and to get more locks on my doors and to change my address.

And god knows it has crossed my mind.

Because you are my atomic bomb, Ashley, and I know I need a shelter underground.

But there you are, calling me up, and there I am… answering you and giving you hope when I should be shutting you out.

And you tell me all about your new universe, the one with me barely in it, like you are taunting me and tempting me at the same time.

Like it means something to me.

Like it means everything to me.

And it does… as much as I can't stand it and as much as I can't understand it… it does.

/ / /

And I wonder what would happen if I told you that I love you still?

That it's gotten to the place where I cannot drift off without the cadence of your timbre lingering along my brain? That all those songs about me are my favorites – and not because of my ego? That when I see your name in print, I still find my breath catching in my throat?

That, for all my side-stepping, all my paths still wind their way to you… no matter where you roam?

And I wonder, at the moment where you say good-night and then the line goes dead, if you'd say it back? Would it shock you? Would it give you the vindication you seek?

Would it ever bring you home again, to me… the girl you captured and claimed and crafted?

/ / /

"Will you be around tomorrow?"

"Not sure."

"Oh. Well, I'll call anyway and leave a message if you are out."

"That's fine."

"I should really get some rest. Big interview tomorrow."

"Yea, I've got a long day ahead of me, too."

"Sorry. I tend to forget the time difference."

"Yea, I know."

"We'll talk tomorrow."

"…If I am around."

"Right. Right… good-night, Spence…"

"Night, Ash."

/ / /

We don't say a damn thing we really mean, though.

/ / /

::END::


End file.
